I know that this thread dates back to 2005, but I'm at a point of chucking my current desktop that I bought a year ago (from a local computer shop) that continually throws errors (you name it ... it's seen it - no keyboard, new CPU, no boot record, etc.) and I've spent more time troubleshooting it than it's worth.

Neil (or anyone else) - what would be your suggestion(s) for a 75th and a 90th percentile system for today, given what X3 requires?

I don't think DataCad is particularly demanding. I'm pretty sick of my laptop but the problems are all down to operations like startup and house keeping. When it come to running DataCad, it really is quite OK, and any new desktop would run a better processor than mine.

The operating system is likely to be the cause of my woes. It is Vista Biz. I suspect the criterion these days is the o/s and you have to have the architecture of the day to match it. In short, you get beaten by the bloat.

I was seriously impressed when using my brother-in-law's Vista Desktop. It was a quad core 2.8 with 2Gb of RAM. I suspect the four cores are what is needed, and my next box won't have anything less. I don't think there is anything unusual about four-core chips these days.

It may be that there is nothing seriously wrong with your computer, it's just that the operating system is in a mess. That can be fixed by a clean install.

MtnArch wrote:It's had a clean install done - twice! Each time the problems keep coming back. An initial guess is there are problems with the HD, but all tests show it to be okay. I think it's just possessed!

I've had the same thing happen - turned out to be a bad memory (ram) chip. Local shop was able to test and saved a whole bunch of money by replacing the ram instead of the box.

Yes, it could be bad RAM, or it can be a failing motherboard (often in the power regulation section).

I would get a fast Intel dual core, or possibly a quad core if your budget allows, with 4-8GB of RAM. Get 4GB if you will be using a 32bit flavor of Windows (and you will "see" 3GB) or if you can use a 64bit version, go for the 8GB. RAM is pretty low cost these days. I'd get 500GB-1TB hard drive at a minimum. Video card should have dual DVI outputs, so you can use two LCD monitors.

MtnArch wrote:They've tried swapping almost everything out with other products trying to pinpoint it, but nothing failed or didn't fail.

I assume that includes switching the RAM? The only time I have experienced something similar, it was the RAM. It cost me a lot of time, stress, and money to fix that.

I guess, if they really have been assiduious in this, the motherboard is due for retirement, and you may find that is all that is needed. The rest of your gear is pretty new, after all.

There was a season when a lot of cheapo short-lived capacitors were put on motherboards. When they died the motherboard died but, I understand, died permanently, so this is probably not your particular problem. You will see now that most motherboards have "quality capacitors" written on the box. Make sure yours does too.

It only lacks a video card to be a +90th Percentile system - nVidia is coming our with new GPU's in a month or two, and I will decide what to get then. The onboard video is pretty good now, and the motherboard has 4 (FOUR!) video output ports: VGA (analog), DVI (digital and being phased out), HDMI, and Display Port, too. It also has 3 (THREE!) slots capable of having a video card.

I am looking forward to the M.2 SSD in particular. Going back to Windows is not great, but I will be using Win10 with ClassicShell, http://www.classicshell.net - so it will look and work like Win7, at least.

Yes, this is something that originated with the Antec P180 case - Antec consulted with Mike Chin who started the site Silent PC Review, and now it has been adopted by many designs. The hard drive bays are at the front of the "tunnel" that houses the PSU. On the Phanteks case I used, there is a grill above the PSU, so it is not sealed. There are filters on the bottom air intake into the PSU, and on the front intake (though the side slots are not filtered). The top is also a grill, which would be a place to mount a large radiator, if you were water cooling it.

The video cards today are the hottest things in the system, followed by the CPU, so putting the hard drives and the PSU at the bottom keep them cooler.

For 2D work in DataCAD it is pretty darn good. Having plenty of system RAM is important, because video uses some of this. I have been working here at work, on a (first gen?) i3 with the onboard video for a long time; and it has only 8GB of system RAM; video uses 2GB. My new home computer is FAR faster than this one, because the Intel video is much better now in the 6th gen i5, and because I have 16GB of system RAM.

I did open some DataCAD drawings with all 3D entities at home, and then it slows down significantly. And certainly to work in SketchUp, you will want a very fast video card.